


Lets Take That Road Before Us, And Sing A Chorus Or Two

by gala_apples



Series: Sleigh Ride 'verse [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bad Parenting, Bisexual Male Character, Christmas Party, Coming of Age, Crossdressing, Crossover, Friends to Lovers, Holidays, Homophobic Language, Long-Distance Relationship, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Office Party, Time Shenanigans, Underage Dirty Jokes, no memory loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:07:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28204329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: On the twelfth day of Christmas parties my true love gave to me: twelve sticker sheets, eleven destroyed boxes, ten stolen rocks, nine kleenexes, eight miles of toilet paper, seven pounds of gingerbread, six layers of lipchap, five shots of vodka, four mixed drink flavours, three muffled moans, two carried suitcases, and one extended twelve hour meal.
Relationships: Steve Harrington/Richie Tozier
Series: Sleigh Ride 'verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066124
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Lets Take That Road Before Us, And Sing A Chorus Or Two

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic, it's undated but Steve and Richie are the same age, hence the time shenanigans tag.

Steve is six when he goes to the Lincoln Investments Christmas party for the first time. His parents went last year, but last year he had a three days sleepover with Grams. This year he gets to go! Andrew Benson tries to tell him that Santa won’t find him if he’s not at his house, but Tommy H throws rocks at him. Tommy H is the coolest, way cooler than Tommy W.

He’s supposed to be seen and not heard the whole vacation. On the airplane he does a good job; he keeps the words of his action figures in his head, and remembers to say please and thank you when the stewardess asks him if he wants pretzels, but from there it gets harder and harder. An airplane is mostly just like sitting in the car except you can't even look out the window and tell how fast you’re going. Only a baby would be excited. But then they check into the hotel, and the beds have three layers of sheets and there’s a table in the corner, enough for a perfect fort. And there’s a swimming pool! And the restaurant they go to the first night has an ice cream sundae bar with like a bajillion topping options. Steve keeps accidentally shouting about stuff, then getting frowned at.

Mom and Dad make him dress all fancy for the party, in brown slacks and a brand new bright green sweater that’s kind of itchy because it hasn’t even been washed yet. They take a taxi to a very tall building, taller than anything Steve’s ever been inside in Hawkins. Steve knows how to read, kind of, but there’s no time to try to decipher the big board that says in glinting gold letters what each floor holds, Dad just grabs him by the wrist and pulls him to the elevator.

He has to say hello with his best manners a bazillion times before Mom and Dad finally drop him off in a room with a bunch of other kids all dressed in their Christmas best. There’s a table with cookies and three different kinds of juice. There’s a bucket of wooden train tracks in the corner with floor room to build something neat. There’s another table with crayons and colouring sheets and plain paper and stickers. Steve considers the bowling for a minute, there’s a kid in big glasses and a reindeer sweater holding a pin up like a mustache who looks like he’d be funny to play with, but ultimately goes for the colouring table. Mom and Dad don’t buy him stickers, because of that one time he decorated the living room credenza and they wouldn’t peel off. He’s gonna make enough art to fill up his whole entire suitcase. Tonight’s going to be fun!

Steve is seven, and he’s thirsty. He passes a storage room on his way to ask his mom if he can have some of the fruit punch a lot of the adults are drinking, instead of the apple juice the woman in the Kids Room keeps on trying to give him. Steve doesn’t even _like_ apple juice in the first place, and the more she tries to tell him it’s good the more mad he feels. He actually passes a dozen rooms, but it’s the only interesting one. It’s the only one with the door open.

Inside is a boy with huge dorky glasses. His friend Brian doesn’t like kids with glasses, he throws dirt clods at them at recess, so Steve does too. But he doesn’t want to right now, because the dork thing is balanced by the box cutter he’s using. Whoever this kid is, he’s definitely not supposed to have a blade that big. It’s super cool.

He’s cutting the heck out of a bunch of filing boxes, but even after watching for a minute, Steve can’t figure out why. “What are you doing?”

“My best friend Stan says when he’s bored he does projects. That there’s no such thing as boring, there’s only people who don’t do things. There’s no cool kids in the Kids Room and my parents told me in the taxi we’re not leaving until at least midnight so I’m building a track for my Hot Wheels.”

“You brought toys with you?” Steve’s got a few at the hotel but his parents wouldn’t let him bring any to the Christmas party and embarrass the family about being such a needy brat.

“Nope. The fake Santa gave me a yo-yo. I traded a toddler it for the cars he got.”

Steve looks at the pile of cardboard on the floor. Now that he’s looking closer, one of the things is definitely a spiral that could turn into a spiral ramp if the boy knows how to make it stand up. “I want to do this.”

The boy looks up from his knife. “What did fake Santa give you?”

“A colouring book.” It’s still in the Kids Room, because he was gonna go right back, only now he doesn’t think he will for a long time.

“Give it. I’ll find someone else with cars to trade with. Oh, and what the hell is your name? I’m Richie.”

“You said hell,” Steve replies, impressed. He’s heard older kids cuss, but his parents would definitely shove a bar of soap in his mouth for daring.

“I hella did. What’s your _name_?”

“Steve.”

“Well okay, Steve-o. You’re not holding your colouring book, unless it’s invisible, so go get it, and then come back so you can guard the track while I get you your own cars.”

Steve nods, and leaves. Richie has three sitting on the floor beside his stack of destroyed boxes, but Steve gets that he doesn’t want to share. More is better, anyway. Six cars zooming down a track as high as their heads will look way cooler.

Steve is eight, and he goes to the Kids Room as soon as he can break away from his parents showing off their rosy cheeked child. He understands it more now than he used to. Steve knows his parents love their jobs, they’re really good at them. Lincoln Investments has branches all over the east coast, and only the top hundred earners are invited to the company headquarters Christmas party. The CEO of Lincoln Investments -and everyone in upper management- is a proud Christian family man, the type to hire decent married folks before anyone else. Showing Steve off like a shiny possession is part of what gets them considered for promotions all year, and each promotion gives them the chance to earn more and secure another invite for the next Christmas. Steve understands now that Mom and Dad don’t care what kind of Christmas he has, as long as he’s helping them. So he does, like a good son, and then he leaves so he can make his own holiday jolly.

Instead of scouting the activities in the Kids Room Steve heads right to the woman supervising them. She must know stuff, she wouldn’t be in charge of an area if she didn’t. “Do you know who all were invited? Do you know if the Toziers are coming?”

“Yes, and yes.”

“Where are they?”

She gives him the same look that the librarian gives him when his whole class gets to go to the library to check out books for projects. They’re in grade three now, they’re allowed. Mrs Cottan doesn’t look at everyone like that, nerds like Barbara Holland and Christopher Pratters get smiles, but whenever Steve talks just a little too loud or has fifteen books pulled out because he can’t decide what he wants to write about, he gets a Look.

“I don’t keep tabs on the whereabouts of every guest. But assuming you’re waiting for that messy little delinquent, he’ll have to come here eventually. This is the children’s room, after all.”

Yep, this lady is just as annoying as the librarian. Steve watches her go smile her fake dumb smile at a few preschoolers, probably lying to them about Santa or something else dumb grown ups do. Meanwhile, he grabs a hunk of colouring pages. He’ll fold a paper airplane squadron while he’s waiting for Richie to show up, then when he does they can run around the building having a competition.

Steve’s not expecting Richie to run in the room theatrically, falling to the ground like he’s been chased. “Save me, Hawkins! I thought I’d never get away from all those lamewads.”

“My name’s Steve,” Steve says. Did he forget? Plus Richie’s kind of landed on a lot of the airplanes, squishing them to shit.

“I know, Steven Harrington. My mom says your mom is impressive. My mom’s boring though, so I don’t care what she thinks. But nicknames are way cooler than real names. People only use real names if they don’t have enough friends to call them nicknames. You don’t think my parents named my wrinkly baby butt Richie do you?”

“No, Boogers probably sounded way better.”

“Oh, Steve gets off a good one!” Richie laughs, delighted. Tommy and Brian get mad when Steve makes jokes about them, but Richie’s really smiling.

Steve looks at the crushed airplanes under Richie’s brown slacked legs. “Do you want to make another ramp?”

“We did that last year.”

“Yeah, I know, it was cool.”

“I have a new idea. It’ll be cooler. Are you in, or are you a buttmunch?”

Steve’s answer is shoving Richie against the nearest wall. Just because he was cool with a knife and cussing and dirty jokes last year doesn’t mean he’s not scrawny with glasses. Steve’s still the better boy here.

Richie only smiles back. “If you think you’re the first friend to push me when I piss you off you’re very wrong.”

Friend? Steve isn’t sure if they’re friends, just playmates, but some people naturally come on strong. Tommy says more than half a grade’s shake out to roles happens without direct contact, just confidence and charisma. Steve’s pretty sure Tommy’s saying stuff his parents say. He’s also pretty sure he’s right. Tommy can make a whole room want to be invited to his birthday party in seconds.

“Come on. We’ve got to steal stuff.” It already sounds fun. Steve abandons the airplane heap without a thought. Let the crabby old woman clean them up, that’s what she gets for scowling at him.

Steve follows Richie as he browses the office floor, seemingly unnoticed. He steals rocks from someone’s desk rock garden. He steals candy canes from the snack table. Steve even follows him to the coat room where he rifles through the jackets until he pulls three scarves stuffed down sleeves.

“Which one’s ugliest?”

Steve votes on the brown and white one, says it’s the colour of farts. Richie high fives him, and tucks it under his armpit, leaving the other two on the floor.

Once Richie’s decided they have all the stuff they need for his master plan, he leads them to the back of the twenty second floor. They go down a billion flights of emergency stairs. Richie tests each floor’s fire doors, and Steve has no idea what they’d do if they managed to get into another floor’s offices, but it doesn’t matter because they all only open from one side. Doing so many stairs is like the most boring gym class Steve’s ever gone to. He could really use Tommy nailing some dweeb with a ball right now.

He’s kinda tired by the time they get to the main floor lobby, but he’s not going to sit out on the bench like a nerd when someone cool wants to do something. So Steve follows Richie outside, keeping close as he darts across two lanes of traffic to a median heaped with snow. Wearing only stolen mitts, Richie starts rolling a ball of snow. Guessing where this is going, Steve starts making his own. It’s cold as a witches’ boobs, being out here with no parka or ski pants, but Richie is singing a dirty cussing version of Frosty The Snowman, and Steve can’t stop laughing. It’s totally worth it. He’ll just warm up under the bathroom’s hand dryer later.

Steve is eleven and he doesn’t want to _be here_. He’s _sick_. He has a cold, a runny nose and a sore throat and he keeps feeling hot then cold then hot. He should be in bed at the hotel, or even better, home at Grams’. If it was up to Steve he would be. But it’s up to his stupid parents, and according to Dad employees who decline the office party invite are employees who slide down the corporate ladder so fast the rungs might as well be slicked with Crisco. The flights for three to Philadelphia pay for themselves within a paycheck, or so Mom says. They’re not about to risk their careers and twenty six of those hefty paychecks a year times two employees for the sake of their son’s sniffles.

The first person his parents drag him in front of for polite Christmas wishes, Steve doesn’t bother to conceal just how exhausted and cranky and sick he is. The woman doesn’t give him the requisite goodbye hug, and for a moment Steve feels victorious. Someone’s actually paying attention to how damn sick he is. Then his parents pull him into a corner and fiercely explain how he needs to shape up and how many privileges will be revoked if he doesn’t. Steve likes having his own tv in his room. The rest of the people his parents flaunt him to see a son worthy of being flaunted.

Finally he’s able to escape. Steve heads for the cubicles on the west side of the building, far from the main party area, away also from the private offices that the grown ups like to hide in to kiss. He doesn’t want to be interrupted by some dumb employee wandering past noisily, drink in hand. He grabs two swivel chairs and braces one against the felt lined wall so its wheels won’t slip, then curls up on top of them. He thinks longingly of the hotel bed, of stealing all the blankets from both the mattresses and cuddling down in a warm nest.

He wakes to someone yelling at him. So much for his master plan. Steve does his best to wipe the drool off his chin and rub the crust of pooled snot from around his nostrils. “Whhha?”

It’s Richie, hands on his skinny hips for a brief moment before he resumes gesturing with them. “I said there you fucking are, Indiana Jones! I saw your mom, I’ve been checking everywhere for you!”

“You were looking for me?” Steve sits up carefully, not wanting the free chair to scoot out from under him with the movement. Clearly he won’t be going back to sleep any time soon.

“Fucking duh, dingus. What else am I gonna do tonight, hang out with the toddlers at the art table?”

His left arm is pins and needles from sleeping on it funny, but he still manages to shrug. “Isn’t that your intelligence level?”

“Wow, your voice sounds like someone stabbed you in the throat with a rusty pickaxe. Come on, let’s go eat like eight of those ice cream cups with the wooden spoons. It’ll make your throat feel better.”

Richie’s right, it does. And when a cold chill kicks in from eating said soothing ice cream, Richie doesn’t even say anything about him being a wuss. Instead Richie takes him to the coat room. Steve watches as Richie scans the temporary wire racks, not sure what he’s looking for but trusting after several years of friendship that he’s got something good in mind. Turns out it’s coaxing Steve to sit leaning against the wall so he can drape a half dozen strangers’ coats over him, like that’s not technically theft.

“You’re surprisingly good at this crap,” Steve tells him. Richie’s better than his own damn parents are.

“I have not one, but two hypochondriac best friends. Do you know what that word means? It means they think they’re sick every five minutes. Me and Billiam got used to treating the worst of it seriously like years ago. At least you’re actually a snot factory. There was this one time-”

Steve closes his eyes as he settles deeper into the pile of thick fabric. Richie can talk for hours, he’ll just sit here and be warm and listen. At least until he gets a hot flash and needs to shove all the coats off.

Steve is twelve, and he spots Mr and Mrs. Tozier before he spots Richie. He’s smart enough to not approach them, just like he’s sure Richie wouldn't talk to his if he stumbled across them. This one day a year of intense friendship might be _because_ of their parents, but it has nothing to _do with_ their parents. Apart from the occasional mutual your mom joke who cares about parents? It does mean though that Richie is indeed somewhere, he just has to find him. This floor is a rabbit warren of public and private offices but he has to be here somewhere.

Steve’s doublegunning candy canes, one in each cheek pocket, when he finds Richie. It’s nearly a reverse of last year, Richie by himself in a dark silent room. And just like Richie last year, Steve interrupts the solitude. He tugs both hooks out of his mouth and dangles them stickily on his index finger so he can say hey. The fresh air activates the menthol or whatever and makes his mouth tingle.

“What? Oh, hey Hawkins.”

“What are you hiding in here for? Your parents aren’t drunk yet, nothing embarrassing yet.” Steve’s well past old enough to know just how much vodka’s in the fruit punch, and knows equally well that the Toziers taxi back to their hotel totally plastered. Richie didn’t seem to care about their behaviour during the previous parties, but maybe he’s had a change of heart. His voice definitely doesn’t have the energy it always has in the past.

“It’s not that. I just don’t want to be here. No offence.”

“You sick?” Winter causes colds, or so Richie’s friend Eddie has said enough times for Richie to pass on the message last year.

Richie’s fingers ball into fists, which gives Steve an excuse to not notice that his eyes are watery. He wouldn’t want someone to notice that on him. Richie’s voice is shaky when he answers “I hate people going missing, it’s the worst. I _hate_ it. Don’t you?”

“Uh, no one’s ever gone missing in Hawkins?”

“Are you serious?”

“Except Lonnie Byers, I guess, sometimes. Except everyone knows he’s just out a county over, drinking and cheating on his wife before she takes him back. There’s no missing person report with the police or anything.” Steve doesn’t really give a crap about Mr Byers, but it makes good teasing fodder for Jonathan Byers, who’s a fucking weirdo.

“I have it on tremendous authority that police are useless. But nothing, seriously? Bad shit happens in Derry all the time. Really, nothing shitty happens? I wonder which one of our towns is the freak show?”

“Do you want to, dunno, talk about it or whatever?” Roger and Tommy would laugh in his face for being such a pansy, Steve knows that for a fact. But also, Roger and Tommy haven’t had multiple people go missing from their town. Maybe they’d be more up for bitching if their problems were more serious.

“I feel like all I fucking do is talk about it.”

“Oh, okay. Sorry, I guess?”

“No, not your fault. It’s just that, remember Bill?”

“Your friend with the cool bike?”

“It’s his little brother. Well, one of them, there’s like four kids missing right now. But it’s all Bill can talk about, which means it’s all me and Stan and Eddie talk about. It’s fucking exhausting sometimes, but if it sucks for me it’s like so much worse for him. And his parents are fucked up. The first month after it happened they were barely feeding him, they didn’t care enough to go grocery shopping. My parents don’t give a shit but at least I have bag lunch.”

“Shit.”

“Eds and Staniel and I made a secret promise to try to keep Bill out of his depressing ass house all winter break, since he doesn't even have school to get him away for a bit. But of course why would my parents care about anything except their goddamn jobs? So I’m here, and it’s all on Eddie and Stan’s shoulders for three whole days. They aren’t half as convincing as I am on shit. Bill’s gonna be even worse when I get back.”

Steve can barely imagine how much that sucks. He’s always wanted a younger brother, someone to teach everything he knows. Tommy and Roger don’t like getting advice, they think it’s people trying to be smarter or better than them. But Richie’s not that kind of guy, he doesn’t think. Which means Steve can offer the best solution he has; find distraction.

“You're a good friend for wanting to be there, but you’re here now, can’t change it. So do you wanna do something cool? We could sneak out again, but make it longer? Have a snow fight or something?”

Like packaging up a parcel, Richie tucks away the misery and looks normal, like nothing’s underneath. It’s impressive. Steve wishes he could be that much in control of himself. He’ll damn well learn before high school, if he wants to continue being popular.

“Follow me. I wanna show you a rad recipe I learned.”

It’s not much of a recipe. It’s not edible, for one thing. And they don’t concoct it in the staff kitchen. Richie takes him to the bathroom and teaches him how to mix the one ply toilet paper with hand soap and water. Once they get the right consistency, the soggy mess sticks to the walls and ceiling when they hurl it. It’s not the most fun Steve’s ever had, but Richie is grinning enough that Steve thinks he’s done right by his friend.

Steve is thirteen and impatient as all hell to get into the cab and head to the Christmas party. He’s thought about Richie and his friends on and off like all year. He even looked up Derry Maine at the library one time, even though Tommy and Roger thought it was stupid. He knows he’ll have to do the meet and greet before he can escape, so the sooner it’s done the better.

As soon as he can, he’s stacked a paper plate with gingerbread and is wandering off to the private offices. He’s not surprised to eventually find Richie by himself rifling through the desk’s drawers.

“Hey Richie,” he calls out.

He’s not expecting Richie to jump enough at the sudden words to move the chair, but there’s no denying that the chair moves like six inches. Steve grants Richie the courtesy of not making fun of him about it. Tommy and Carol wouldn’t be so kind, wouldn’t miss an opportunity to be funny, but what they don’t know won’t hurt them.

“Shit. Hey Indiana.” Richie kicks his feet up on the desk like he meant to do that the whole time. His shoes are gross, his laces ratty. Steve’s mom and dad wouldn’t have let him leave the hotel wearing something so scuffed. “Park your ass on the desk, there’s only one chair, and the King of Pussy gets the throne.”

“Fuck off, don’t fuckin’ think so.” Steve takes a minute to shove in a spinning chair from the next office over. It’s a tight fit to get them both in and the door closed, but the conversation Steve wants to have is better off done with some semblance of privacy.

“Did they find Bill's brother?”

Richie winces, and Steve's heart clenches. “Yes? I mean, kind of. He was found in the sewer. They found everybody.”

“Oh my god. That’s awful.”

Richie smiles brutally. It’s the kind of smile people wear in the war movies Steve watches with Roger. “Don’t worry, he didn’t starve to death or anything slow. His arm had gotten ripped off, blood loss probably took him in seconds. Little bodies have less blood to spare.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah, it was pretty fuckin’ fucked. It’s been a year. You sharing those?”

Of course Steve’s sharing his pile of like twenty five cookies, he’s not a barbarian. He’s a bit surprised that Richie doesn’t suggest they steal some milk from the company fridge, but he doesn’t care enough to suggest it himself. It’s like three days ‘til Christmas, his mouth is allowed to sweetly burn like this.

Eventually though, the heap is much depleted. Steve doesn’t want to risk prompting a brooding Richie to talk more about his best friend’s dead brother. Better to trigger his friend’s ADHD with a project, like Stan suggested so many years ago. “You wanna go wander around, look for something to mess around with?”

“Uh, no. Kinda just want to stay here.”

“Really?” Last year he helped Richie through mindless distraction. Steve wants to be a good guy and do it again now. “Sure? We could wander around the building until we found something cool? Maybe even fuck around on the emergency stairwell, see if there’s any interesting doors to break into?”

“Hell no!”

“Dude?” That was a way stronger reaction than Steve expected.

“Oh, you never know when a door’s going to have some misleading shit spray painted on it. I’ve seen things, man,” Richie chuckles weakly, reaching for another cookie with a slightly trembling hand.

“Must have been a bunch of nightmarish dicks, because I know you’d tell me if it had been pussy,” Steve jokes, trying to take the edge off. Who doesn’t like a good sex joke?

Richie proceeds to choke on his entire mouth crammed with gingerbread. He coughs so hard wet cookie paste spills down his chin. Steve snickers for a moment, cause he’s a guy and that shit’s funny, before snatching up the plate and quickly ducking out. By the time Steve’s come back with a refill and a carton of two percent milk, Richie’s no longer dying. He’s also managed to find a deck of cards somewhere.

After checking that Steve knows the rules, Richie starts dealing for Crazy Eights. They play it for hours, both of them racking up equal wins, to the faint tune of Christmas carols in the background being mostly drowned out by the stories they tell. Steve has to guess Richie’s are edited because they’re all funny, about his three old friends and three new ones he’s gotten, and Steve knows Richie’s life hasn’t been sunshine and rainbows if multiple kids have been found mutilated, but he doesn’t press it. If Richie wanted to bitch and moan and cry, he would.

Case in point, just before midnight, Richie abruptly says, “you’d never know if I went missing.”

“What?”

“And I’d never know if you did,” he continues.

“What? I thought you said things were okay now? Everyone was recovered, no more missing?”

“I mean, kind of, but it’s still just facts. Our parents get invited every year because they’re moneymakers, but if one of us didn’t show we’d think it was because their parents sucked this year, not because we got trapped in a locked bedroom with a river of burning black acid heading straight for us.”

Steve snorts. “Uh, I nominate you for that.”

Steve snorts, and quips, and then he realizes Richie’s not laughing. Richie’s, like, _upset_. Steve doesn’t like that. “We could write letters? I mean, it’s kind of surprising we aren’t already? We’ve been attending this party for like half our lives and you’re the only one I hang out with.”

Richie tosses his hand of cards onto the desktop and opens the desk drawer. He scrawls his address on the back of one playing card, and pushes the rest of the loose pile towards Steve. “Write yours. We’ll take our souvenirs home, and really piss off the guy who tries to play solitaire on Monday.”

Steve laughs imagining the frustration of a man so bored he plays solitaire every day at work losing two cards from his deck. Trust Richie to prank people from a different state. Maybe he can give helpful tips for really spicing up the second half of eighth grade.

Steve is fourteen and the moment the elevator hits the twenty second floor, he’s shearing off from his parents before they can protest. Seeing Richie is easily the best part of the Christmas holidays. They’ve been sporadically writing letters the whole year. It’s harder in reality than it seemed in concept. He feels stupid, sometimes, when the words won’t come out on paper like he means in his head. Plus his friends think he’s a pussy for having a pen pal. Plus the post office lady hates him. All that added to Richie’s shockjock humour coming off a lot better in person than on paper and it hasn’t exactly been a letter a week. Still, Steve’s dying to see him.

He finds him at the dessert table. Richie’s scooped a few of the ice cream serving cups onto a disposable plate and has mashed some gingerbread cookie into it. It’s a hot fucking mess, and probably doesn’t even taste great, but Steve knows he’ll end up trying it. It’s a good thing Steve came at him side on, because he might not have recognized him from the back. Richie’s grown. Steve has too, it’s not like puberty fairy didn’t wallop him with a two by four, the amount he sweats now is obscene. But Richie’s like a foot taller than he was last year. It’s wild. Steve plans to try out for JV basketball. Richie should too.

They’ve just finished their customary hello elbowing and tousling and moved into spilling their guts about the events of the last year -Steve knows Richie will have a million funny stories about his friends that couldn’t translate to paper and is excited to hear all of them- when two girls approach. They’re pretty, both of them. A brunette in a dress with ornaments printed on it, and a blonde with no Christmas attire at all. He wonders how she got away with it, Mom and Dad would never allow that familial shame for him.

“Hey, I’m May. This is Belinda.”

“Beli,” the second girl corrects.

Richie chortles. “Like belly belly belly belly” he says rapidly in a semi sing song, lifting up his shirt and drumming his stomach to the rhythm. Steve wants to laugh. He also doesn’t want to make the cute girls mad. It’s hard to know what to do.

“No,” she says, annoyed. “Like with an I.”

“Well when you put it like that, I’m Richie with an ie, and that’s Steve with just an e, making him clearly the most boring one in this ménage a four.”

“You wanna hang out for a while while our parents are at this stupid party?”

“We think we found a private spot,” May adds.

“Yeah, our parents have been coming for years, I’m sure we have it all mapped out already.”

Steve elbows Richie. Is he dumb or what? How can he not realise what the girls are doing? “Sure, we’d like to find a cool spot at this lame ass thing.”

Their cool spot is not a cool spot. It’s literally just another upper management office. There’s like a hundred on this floor. What it is though, is a room with doors that close. It’s not even half an hour of chatting them up before Beli’s raising up on her tiptoes for a kiss. Probably could have taken even less time if it was Tommy beside him. Richie keeps making dumb bad jokes that derail everything. Still, Steve is glad he’s here. Richie clearly needs to be helped, be taught a few lessons in seduction. He's a self proclaimed loser, after all.

“Just gonna go take a leak. Don’t want to sprinkle my tinkle on the mistletoe festivities.”

Fine, Steve thinks. Crude, not the best way to disguise running off to quickly chew some gum and sternly remind your dick not to misbehave, but it’s hard to expecting something beyond crude for Richie. Only he doesn’t come back. It’s been five, ten, fifteen minutes of making out with Beli, May getting more and more jealous and annoyed as she builds paperclip bracelets, and he still isn’t back yet.

“No offence but where the hell is your stupid friend?”

“Uhhh-”

“Go find him and tell him I won’t even want to kiss him if he’s not back in five minutes.”

Steve does what he’s told. Not just because it’s what a pretty girl wants, but because he wants this for Richie. He’s said in his letters he’s had like a dozen girlfriends, that he’s slaying pussy, but Steve doubts it now. This might actually be his first make out session. Steve wants to help him lock that down. Richie deserves it.

“What are you doing? May is waiting for you.”

Richie shakes his head. “Yeah, no. I’ll pass. You’ve seen one stranger with razor sharp teeth and a gaping maw, you’ve seen them all.”

“What do you mean?” Steve frowns. What the fuck is he talking about? It’s a joke obviously, but he doesn’t get it.

“Don’t worry about it, Indiana. Just go have fun. Go home with a hickey or five.”

Steve can tell by Richie’s stupid fake smile that he means it, he won’t be going back to May. Well, screw it. “Fuck off, I didn’t come to Philadelphia to make out with a random girl, I came out to hang out with you.”

“That’s so sweet, Hawkins, but really, it’s fine. I can open a window somewhere and throw pens, see if I can impale a windshield.”

“Dude, I said fuck off. There are a million girls in Hawkins, I’ll kiss one every night of the year. There’s only one night with your greasy ass.”

“Huh,” Richie says, genuinely surprised that Steve’s gone bros before hoes. “Cool. Uh, wanna impale windshields with me?”

Steve says yes on the mental provision that there’s no way they’ll actually find a twentieth floor office window capable of opening. His parents would fucking slaughter him if he destroyed a car of someone from Lincoln Investments.

Steve is sixteen and having yet another bland conversation about the blizzardy conditions outside. He hasn’t kept track, but this is probably about the twentieth comment about the weather he’s shared. It’s boring but his parents are happy, and they’ve so rarely been happy with him lately. Ever, it goes without saying, but particularly lately. Interrupting their sleep with the occasional screaming nightmare has left Mom and Dad, shall we say... unimpressed. Steve can handle boring for twenty more minutes before he goes to track down Richie, if it’ll get them off his back.

He’s moved on from icy roads with Mr Horton to basketball with Ms Clements when it happens. The room’s lights start to flicker. Not just the main lighting, but all the Christmas lights strung up on the wall and dangling just above their heads. It puts Steve right back at the Byers’ house last month. Nancy’s aiming a gun at him, and it’s terrible, and then she’s aiming a gun not at him, and who could have guessed that’d be worse? But there it was, cracking its way out of the ceiling.

“Everyone away from the walls!” When Nancy’s gun had run out of bullets and Jonathan was laid out on the floor, Steve had taken charge. Beaten the stomach turning monster all the way to the bear trap, risking his life with each swing but not willing to live in a world where he retreated to his car and stayed there. He’ll have to take charge again, none of these people know enough to know to start running.

Only it doesn’t happen again. All the spasming lights stop their crazy dance, turn solid red and green and orange and blue. Everyone’s looking at him, and not the way that people look at him when he’s racking up points on the court or making a joke at a kegger. Everyone’s looking at Steve the way his parents look at him, and it’s too much.

“Hah hah, Merry Christmas prank, folks,” Steve chuckles unconvincingly. It’s hard to laugh when his heart is still pounding double time with terror.

Not a single person looking at him laughs. Not even a fake one to move the interaction along and allow him to exit gracefully.

Well, if he can’t do it gracefully, he’s gotta do it pathetically. Steve retreats to the private offices as quickly as he can, and sits in a chair while the non-bulging walls laugh at him. He’s so fucking dumb, of course it wouldn’t be a threat in Philadelphia, Nancy’s only explained the Upside Down to him like forty times.

The door slams open, hitting the wall with a hard smack. It makes Steve jump even as he sees Richie in a elf t-shirt.

“Coulda opened that with a little less oomph, I guess. Sorry. Eds would be shoving me right now for that.”

Steve shrugs. He’s not going to fight someone just because they made him look like a jerk. That’s the Tommy Hagan way, and Steve’s trying to be better than that now. Even if it does leave him with egg on his face more often than not.

“It wasn’t anything, uh, scary. I mean, just snow temporarily falling on a power line. It’s a wet night out.”

“Uh huh.” He knows. He gets it now, how fucking dumb he’s been. He’s just not ready to say much, currently deeply embarrassed. It’s hard to say where that emotion falls on the spectrum, compared to the abject terror he was feeling five minutes ago, or the resentment and cowardly failure to stick up for himself four hours from now when Dad is inevitably berating him in the hotel room for making a scene.

“No, I’m not saying it like you’re a little bitch who shouldn’t have been scared by anything. I’m saying it like scary shit happens, it’s okay to be scared, but you don’t have to be this time!”

Steve’s not really seeing the distinction.

“Come on Trashmouth, pull it together,” Richie mutters to himself. A little louder he says “look, this serious commiseration shit is not working for us. You need a Bill or a Ben for that maneuver. How about instead I go get some liquor, and we forget that that happened at all? The Richie Tozier Special!”

Getting blackout drunk is not special to Richie, Tommy and the guys have been instilling it as a virtue since the beginning of freshman year. But it’s fun, usually, or at least takes the edge off. Steve would not be opposed.

“Good luck smuggling the giant punch bowl out of the room under your sweater,” Steve says.

“I’m a jester, not a fool,” Richie answers. “Be right back.”

Steve watches Richie literally jog out of the room. He’s not sure how he comes back with a bottle of booze, but Steve happily takes it from his hand and twists the cap off. Steve makes a hideous face as he gulps and the alcohol sears his throat. Richie doesn’t even mock him for it, make the same face back at him. Proof he really is a good friend, more proof than Steve ever had to hand about Tommy and Carol.

Steve is seventeen, and planning to get very drunk tonight. He’s happy Richie’s got the same thing in mind. Last year Richie just bolted into the kitchen, picked up the first handle he saw and ran for it. This year they’re a bit more discerning. Not by a lot, they’re teenagers not wine connoisseurs, but enough to steal a pouch of fruit punch mix and a spare coffee pot. Once they’re tucked away in one of the offices Richie cuts the water the recipe calls for in half, and substitutes vodka. It’s sickly sweet and easy to chug, which is all a red blooded American teenager could ask for.

“So how many people asked you about your college plans?” Steve asks bitterly.

“Oh, I don’t know, only every single fucking one of them.” Richie says taking a gulp. Richie’s on his fifth drink, and Steve’s keeping up with him. Sooner rather than later he’ll be smashed, and life will feel a little less shitty. “I don’t even want to go.”

Steve slams back the rest of his cup, and then refills it from the coffee pot they stole. “I don’t think I am going.”

“Really?”

Steve shakes his head. “I suck at everything, dude. I’m barely passing anything. No college is going to take me. And I didn’t even care, at first, because my girlfriend was in a grade lower than me, so it’d be like staying home for love.”

“Is this still Nancy?” Richie asks. Steve can’t blame him for not being sure, they rarely write about things not jokes, and long term relationships are too boring for studly lady’s man Richie to inquire.

“It was. But she cheated on me, and hooked up with the other dude we’d all been in a big deal situation with. Like I can’t even say she’ll come back to her senses and drop him for me, because we all faced the same shit and turns out she likes the way he handles things better.”

“Oh fuck. That’s fucked up, man. Cheated? Shit. Drink more.”

Steve chugs half the cup, then puts it down to continue. “I mean maybe it’s a matter of perspective? We had a big fight, I thought we were still a couple and gonna make up. She didn’t, maybe, because she went and fucked him like a day later. If you’re broken up it’s not cheating, obviously.”

“She should have called you when his dick was in her hand, before she hopped on, just to check that it was cool. Fuck her, man,” Richie exclaims.

“Nah. I hate that she’s my ex, but I kinda get it. Some shit happened, and we weren’t supposed to talk about it, so I didn’t, kept my head down, but she wanted to, and then Jonathan was there with all the same experiences saying yeah, fuck them for doing this to us. He let her be mad.”

Richie shrugs. “I get where repression might not help, but everyone’s gotta do what they gotta do. If you needed to, who fucking cares if she wanted honesty or whatever. It’s overrated, by a lot.”

Steve wonders what Richie lies to his friends or girlfriends about. He’s being too defensive to not be speaking personally.

“I really don’t want to go, but it wouldn’t matter if I stayed home. All my friends are going to different places. We talked big game about applying to all the same places, but each of them applied to a few extra colleges with a really good fill in the blank program, and we all know if any of us get accepted to the place of our dreams, we're going. We spent too long being crushed to dust in Derry to not follow our dreams now that we can. I’m gonna be lonely anywhere. At least if I go, somewhere, anywhere, who even cares, it gets me the fuck out of Derry. I can move away from all the people who fucked me up.”

“Even if you move away from the people who loved you?”

“The fuck would you have me do, fucker?” Richie bitches, leg lashing out and getting Steve in the belly.

“Follow one of them. Whichever one you can. It’s better to have one friend than no friends. This asshole Billy sorta gunned for my spot on the totem pole, and got it because I didn’t fight back hard enough. I mostly don’t even care, I’m pretty over it, but without a girlfriend either it’s quiet. If I didn’t have Dustin, I don’t know what I’d do with my evenings.”

“Dustin?”

“He’s this twelve year old I hang out with. He’s oddly a really good friend now. No one can survive not having any friends. You gotta go with one of them, who cares who.”

“I’ll keep the unsolicited advice in mind, Hawkins.” Richie drains his cup and pours another one. “After this, wanna make some nog?”

“Why not?” He’s already going to get screamed at in the hotel later for being a disappointment, might as well get the lecture while hammered.

Steve is eighteen and curls his fists inside his pockets every time his parents use the fact that he survived a mall fire to help distract from the shame of not excelling in university. Each time Mom says the word fire Steve flashes to Billy’s pool of blood widening and Max’s wailing and breathing through broken ribs. The way bits of the Mind Flayer smelled as they roasted before he and everyone else was evacuated from the burning building. Thankfully he’s got years of repression under his belt now, and manages to not have a screaming fit ala two years ago. Instead Steve grits his way through it and then grabs a cup of punch. He’s still underage, as many of these obnoxious rich assholes know, but no one cares. He could be doing cocaine in the bathroom and no one would care, as much as his dad pretends he hates his son smokes pot. The veneer of family values is vastly more important than actual family values, Steve’s known that since he was eleven and they made him fly across the states while he was dying from pneumonia.

“What in good god’s name are you wearing?” Steve asks Richie the moment he finds him, pushed to the limit of seeming calm. He’s not even done his drink yet, he’s not ready for something like this.

“You know how it is,” Richie shrugs, pulled away from his petty game of rearranging the bulletin board. “You decide to wear something that’ll piss your parents off in hopes of being banned. Your parents say your shame isn’t going to prevent you from attending. Then you have to pretend you were prepared for an entire office plus plus ones to see you like this and commit to wearing it.”

Yeah, that sounds like exactly the kind of bullshit prank Richie would get himself stuck in. “Jesus.”

“Don’t worry, a week from now I’ll have a whole new set about this.”

Richie’s wearing a red cableknit sweater, a red pleated skirt, and red and white striped tights. The clunky battered sneakers take away from the look, but from the ankles up he’s a bastard combination of football team masculine and Nancy Wheeler immaculate and dainty. It hits Steve _hard_.

Steve’s had an entire autumn of evening shifts at Family Video to talk to Robin. To understand how she feels around girls like Tammy Thompson is how he’d feel around girls like Tammy, if girls like Tammy were his type, because gays feel things the same way as straights. Turns out that always wanting to be around someone, the way every word they say is interesting, that they are aesthetically superior; that feeling that means friendship in guys and potential dating in girls? It’s actually a crush either way now. It always has been. He just wasn’t ready to say Tommy or Roger or Brian had dating potential so desire got twisted into platonic pride for having such a good friend.

Steve can’t say he regrets not kissing Tommy. Even if he’d allowed it -and Steve does have his theories there, there were returned looks of ‘pride’ on rare occasion- there’s no way it wouldn't have made the dissolving of their friendship a hundred times worse. Tommy’d have convinced Billy to tie Steve to the car and road-rash him to death.

Richie, however, is a different story. He doesn’t seem like the queer bashing type, too weird to consider that kind of thing important. And the stakes are pretty low. This is potentially the last time they ever see each other so if Richie does freak out it’s just the matter of ignoring him for the next few hours. And if he freaks out enough that Steve’s parents find out, screw it. It’s just more motivation to move out of the house. So Steve, for the first time in his life, is going to man up and flirt with a boy.

“I still say you should find a guy to record your stand up. I wanna fuckin’ see it.” It’s not just buttering him up. Steve’s made it clear since Richie first spoke of amateur standup at a nearby college bar that he’s positive the Mainer kicks ass.

“Not everyone knows an elementary schooler in AV Club, you nerd adjacent motherfucker.”

“Good material or not, I’m kind of surprised you came, really.” The CEO likes seeing college success stories, all things are possible with the power of Christ and all, but Richie doesn’t have a lot of patience for impressing people.

“Yeah, well, knew your parents would make the cut, so it wouldn’t be totally excruciating. Plus mine said they wouldn’t pay for second semester if I didn’t. Honestly I’m surprised they didn’t pop out another baby just to keep the money flowing.”

Steve nods. “I can see how a semester with Mike would be worth a night of partying. Glad you’re here, man. Love spending time with you.”

Richie laughs. “Yup, they definitely make them softer in Indiana. All of my best friends would rather die than say that shit, and I _know_ how much they love me.”

Steve gets closer, his jeans brushing the a-line of Richie’s skirt. “I mean it. I love being with you.”

Richie stumbles over his response. “Yeah. Uh. You- said?”

It’s not working. He maybe should have asked Robin for tips about how gay flirting is different than straight flirting, but Steve didn’t exactly get on the plane thinking he was gonna seduce his long distance friend. He thought he could fall back on innate skill, but Richie’s not melting the way the girls in high school did. The only thing Steve can think of is being more direct. So he makes his move. He steps in and kisses him. It takes Richie a few slack seconds before he responds, before he balls his hands into Steve’s snowflake motif sweater and pushes his tongue against Steve’s lips, but it’s worth the wait.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“Aren’t we already keeping one?” Richie asks half hysterically, gesturing to their closeness. “Unless you want to tell me everyone at home knows about you.”

“Another one.”

“Sure, I guess?”

“I want to see your dick so bad right now,” Steve murmurs. And maybe he’s back to old tricks, the way he tells girls he’s desperate to take their shirts off, but of course Richie responds better to crudeness than romance. It was stupid to think otherwise.

“Fuck the painted lady sideways, I don’t even know what’s happening right now,” Richie breathes.

“What’s happening is you can take this off,” Steve yanks on the hem of Richie’s skirt, “and make sure the door is locked. If you want.”

“Can I tell you one?”

“A secret? Yeah...”

“I don’t feel embarrassed about wearing this to prove a point. I know I should, kinda proves the whole sissy fag thing true, even if Bev would fucking slaughter me for insinuating girl stuff makes you weak. But I don’t. I feel good as shit, actually. Sexy, even.”

“Really? I mean you look it to me, but it’s also kind of exactly what Nancy would have worn, so it’s mixed up in my head, maybe.” Talking about exes is probably a bad strategy for hookups regardless of gender, but there’s something about Nancy that Steve will never stop pining for, even when he’s ninety.

“Boys clothes are all the same, so who cares what you wear? But this... I look good. Good enough for you to want me.”

It’s not something Steve’s thought about before, the variety of men’s clothes vs women’s. But it’s true, probably, and Richie does look fucking fantastic. It hits Steve like a whirlwind, just how much he wants him. Steve’s had a lot of sex. Maybe not as much recently -though as it turns out girls are way better wingmen than boys, they trust each other in ways that Tommy was always just scuzzy, and now that Robin cares about his relationships she helps- but enough to know this is real. He’s not just projecting this, he really wants Richie’s hands all over him.

It takes a lot -it takes nothing- to get his hand on Richie’s cock. He lets the boy keep his skirt on, just pushes his palm up a thigh and lets the fabric gather against his wrist the same way he has a dozen times before. Steve kisses him through it, swallowing his noises as best he can. They won’t be the first single people hooking up behind closed doors, but they have a bit more to lose if they’re caught. He doesn’t fucking care if he’s caught. He just wants to taste Richie forever.

Richie returns the favour grandiosely, using his height and the wide planes of his shoulders to pin Steve against the window. The glass is cool on the cheek of his turned head, and Richie’s fingers are hot against his cock. Billy Hargrove would laugh at him for being excited about a handjob, if he didn’t beat him to a pulp for being queer, if he wasn’t horribly dead, but Steve can’t do anything except live his life the way he needs to, and yes, that includes a Christmas handie from a beautiful guy he’s known since he was seven.

“I kinda always imagined that being with my best friend,” Richie says afterwards. “I’m glad it was with a friend.”

“First time with a guy? Yeah, me too.”

“Yeah. Or with, uh, anyone,” Richie says in a rare bout of honesty.

“Oh, shit. Thanks for making it me.” It’s not his first virgin. Nancy wasn’t either. By now Steve’s had the honour enough to understand what it means to someone, while not enough to make it a predatory fetish.

“Don’t read too much into it, Hawkins. I’m not gonna be writing our initials down on my notebook cover.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not gonna share my juicebox,” Steve retorts with a laugh, raising his still half full glass of punch in Richie’s direction.

Steve is twenty, and in a hotel lobby waiting for Richie to show up, a suitcase parked at his feet. His own belongings would only stuff a backpack, but he’s got a dozen presents too. He’s spent the last six months buying stuff he sees that he thinks Richie might like. It’s hard to be romantic long distance, but he’s hoping the Queen shirt he bought in October might hold a candle to fresh flowers stuffed in a locker.

Not that he even knows for sure that romance is what Richie wants. It’s been six months since Richie made his way to Hawkins on his year long hitchhiking story gathering pilgrimage through the good ole USA. Six months since Richie made a crack about that Christmas party handjob, and another had ended up happening before the night was over. Six months since Richie’d had to move on, a scheduled rendezvous with Eddie in some little waterfront town in Michigan luring him away. Richie’s called him from pay phones in a dozen different states since. They talk almost every night, about the weird things Richie’s experienced, about the strangers he’s meeting, about Steve’s far more mundane life, about how much they want to fuck each other, about the countdown until their meet up the week before Christmas. Steve _likes_ Richie, and he wants Richie to like him in the same way. He just can’t know for sure until he’s face to face with the man again, if they’re as compatible as he thinks.

If he was Nancy or Jonathan he’d be using the time to draft an essay, or compose mental photos. If he was Dustin he’d be devising a new campaign idea. If he was El he’d be marveling at the gigantic bejewelled tree in the corner. Steve’s hobbies are more athletic than that and the lobby doesn’t exactly have a hoop set up, so he’s stuck watching the muted overhead television, like the Yukon Hotel is a shitty hospital waiting room. It doesn’t capture more than an ounce of his attention, all the rest of it focused on Richie and his absence. He just wants to see him, the clock shouldn’t be moving this slowly.

“Hey Hawkins!”

Steve jumps to his feet, energized beyond belief at the sound of Richie’s voice. He rushes across the lobby, because of course Richie didn’t bother to wait until he was at the couches, just bellowed across the vast room. When he’s close enough Steve kisses him hello. Fuck it. It’s the nineties, not the fifties, the concierge can’t kick them out for this.

Richie’s frozen stiff at first. It’s a sure sign he’s let his week long stay in his hometown crawl sickly into his mind, the graffiti and the slurs and the menacing. But by increment Richie remembers he’s out and not ashamed, and by increment he returns the liplock. There’s at least one other guest watching them, and Steve couldn’t care less. Times like these, you need to seize life, no matter what other people say.

When they finally break their kiss, Richie is grinning at him. “I cannot tell you how kickass it is that you’re still into my big dumb face.”

“Of course I am,” Steve rolls his eyes. “We call each other every night.”

“Oh, and do you live in some sci-fi future universe where a phone call lets you see how gross and scrawny the person you’re talking to is?”

“Shut up Richie, you’re not.”

“Many people would beg to differ, run screeching from this hot bod.”

“Not me,” Steve says firmly. Maybe he can’t quite admit to his emotional state at the moment, not until he has a better idea of Richie’s -he’ll lie if he has to, so it doesn’t get awkward- but what he can freely admit to is finding the man attractive as hell. “Do you want to go out, or up to the room?”

“Do you even have to ask? What floor are we on?”

“Twenty two.”

Richie tackles him a little bit in the middle of a hotel lobby, as prone to roughness as affection. “You did that on purpose, you sappy bastard.”

Steve shrugs. “What if I did?”

They maintain a decent chatter as they wait for the slow as balls elevator to haul them up. There’s a lot to say, they haven’t talked in nearly a week. There’s a lot Steve can’t say, it’s been the kind of busy week in Hawkins Steve’s only suffered through three other times. Steve’s best plan is to just let Richie go on about the man with seven dogs he saw on the drive into Derry. It’s a good story, and gets the spotlight off him.

“How’s everything in your hometown?” Or not. Apparently Richie wants communication to be a two way street. What a jerkoff.

Steve can’t exactly tell Richie about Hopper not being dead, and battling Russians, now can he? “Fine, good. I made up with Nancy. We’re friends again. Jonathan too.” It’s what happens when someone takes a bullet for you. “Did everyone come back to Derry for winter break who said they were going to?”

“Almost. Stan bailed last minute. He really loves it in Atlanta, and I think he met someone? Bev almost didn’t, but she knew Ben was coming in, so.” Richie snorts. “She lives with Bill but spends hundreds on airfare to see Ben. It’s a gambler’s paradise, never sure who to bet on her ending up with.”

“Maybe I’ll meet them and toss my own five bucks down next Christmas.” They met in Philadelphia, again for nostalgia’s sake, but Steve could just have easily flown into Bangor and rented a car to take him the rest of the way.

The elevator door opens, and Richie tugs the hand not holding onto the suitcase. “Stop talking about my friends and show me where I’m blowing you for the first time.”

“Will do!”

Steve is twenty one and very relieved to not be hosting a Christmas Eve meal. That’s just entirely too much responsibility. His culinary skills amount to the thirty ways he knows how to fuck with eggs. They have some kind of egg dinner like four times a week, Steve knows enough about spices and sauces and sides to make it not hideously repetitive, but omelettes are hardly turkey and fresh hot dinner rolls and pie. And Richie’s even worse than he is, it’s just endless sandwiches and leftovers from work.

Luckily they’re not alone in Chicago. Not alone, and semi-surrounded by people more competent than themselves. Steve doesn’t regret much about the way his life’s turned out. He’s with someone he can be honest with. He never thought that would happen again after losing Nancy. The first time, though, that Steve woke up screaming after a particularly rough dream montage, Richie with glasses askew hovering anxiously over him, he actually told him about the Russians and the vine tunnels and the Mind Flayer. And mind bogglingly, instead of saying he was full of shit, Richie told him about a clown, and Paul Bunyan, and having to set his best friend’s broken bone, and seeing things float. It was a scary dawn, learning more about the ugliness of the world, but the kind of scary that ties you to someone permanently. A bond he didn’t think he’d get again after Robin. He’s got a job, and an apartment away from his shitty parents and a solid boyfriend who understands things; so yeah, Steve’s dumb choices generally worked out in the end. There’s still no way around the fact that they’re the least adult people amongst their friends groups.

For lunch they take the train west to Nancy and Jonathan’s. It’s a compact studio apartment. Just because the Wheelers and Byers are proud of their children’s choices -unlike some parents Steve could name- doesn’t mean they’re paying their way through university. The Wheelers have three kids to support, and of course the Byers continue to have ridiculous medical bills. Steve can smell the ham cooking from the long hallway, and follows the scent all the way to the door with the wreath on it.

Kicking his boots off at the doorway, Steve looks around curiously. Nancy and Jonathan have managed to make their tiny space festive. No room for a tree, and obviously there are no Christmas lights strung up, but there are paper decorations taped up everywhere, and two stockings hung from the curtain rod of the single window. It’s more decorative than he and Richie have managed. They’ve got a tree with about eighteen types of garland vomited onto it, and a plastic reindeer lawn ornament crammed onto their death trap balcony. It might stay there all year, Steve genuinely does not want to go back out onto the chipping concrete to retrieve it.

It’s hugs all around, then they pile onto the futon that acts as a second bed if Mike or Will or El want to visit. Richie asks about Jonathan’s classes, all the freaks and geeks that take photography as a major, and Jonathan laughingly relates Anwar and Shaky Elizabette’s latest antics. Richie soaks up the stories like a sponge, no doubt converting them into scenes and stories a thousand times funnier inside his brain. Steve will see some form of these bubble out into Richie’s set over the following months, just like he does every time any friend tells a story. Richie’s brain isn’t built for the education he dropped out on, it’s built for storytelling. A hundred years ago the entire village would have honoured him, sitting in a ring around him listening raptly. Now he gets bitched out on his monthly phone conversations with his parents for wasting his life. Something Steve’d have in common with him, if Steve ever called home anymore.

Nancy gets Steve to join her three steps away from the living room into the kitchen to glaze the ham one last time as she checks on the vegetables boiling on three different elements. Richie draws his ripped jean clad legs under him and fidgets with his zipper as he demonstrates a few impressions for Jonathan. Steve is struck with the urge to curl his hand over the arch of Richie’s woolly socks and tuck his head onto Richie’s shoulder. He just fucking loves his man so much. But chatting with Nancy has its own appeal, and he does care about the ham being the best it could be. Steve dips his basting brush for the umpteenth time and breathes in his satisfaction.

“About twenty more minutes, then it’ll be ready,” Nancy announces as she leads him back to the living room.

“That gives us enough time for present exchange, if you’d like to?” Jonathan suggests.

Richie’s contribution is chanting “presents! Presents!” as he claps.

It’s a far quicker affair than opening presents used to be when Steve was a kid. There’s only two presents each, since Steve knows Nancy and Jonathan are opening theirs to each other tomorrow while on the phone with the rest of the Byers, and Steve and Richie have a few things wrapped under the glittery abomination that is their tree. Great minds think alike, both he and Richie got Jonathan and Nancy eighths of pot. Nancy gets Richie some awful grunge band cassette while Jonathan passes on some Hawaiian shirts some fiber arts student at School of the Art Institute of Chicago dyed wackily. Steve gets a far superior cassette from Nancy, and a really good pan from Jonathan, no doubt inspired by Steve’s confession that cooking a Christmas meal at his place was nigh on impossible.

The meal, when they can finally eat it, is delicious. Steve blames anticipating a big dinner on eating less than he usually would. Really he just wants Nancy and Jonathan to have as much leftovers as they can get. He knows the budget gets tight sometimes. The four of them all make about the same at their menial jobs, but he and Richie don’t have thousands of dollars of student debt on top of it. Steve savours every bite of apple pie as they flip channels to find the best Christmas movie. Whoever can quote the most dialogue wins.

It’s after four by the time they get to Bev, Bill, and Ben’s two bedroom apartment. This time it’s not the smell wafting down the hallway, but the noise. Steve sees the ever present smile brightening into something true on Richie’s face and warmth spreads through his guts. They let themselves in, because no one would hear them knocking anyway.

Apartment 306 -nicknamed 3B for its renters- is loaded with all the Losers, plus Stan’s girlfriend Alicia and Mike’s boyfriend Trevor. All four of the Losers invading the space are exploding with energy. It’s really something to see them together, it’s like they glow. Alicia and Trevor just can’t compare, even though Steve can appreciate a girlfriend cool enough to drive eleven hours from Atlanta, as well as a boyfriend willing to trade off holidays and calls dibs on Easter.

Steve falls back a little, lets them have their reunion. Stan’s hair is still wet, confirming Richie’s suspicion that he’d shower right after getting out of the airport like a total freakshow. Mike starts exclaiming that he’s found the craziest hot chocolate recipe they need to try and Eddie starts up about the ten billion things he’s allergic to while Richie loudly chimes in bullshit with each food listed. Bev distributes wildly quilted Christmas hats Steve has no doubt she made herself, considering she and Bill started living together so she could attend SAIC for fashion and he creative writing.

“I get the feeling things are gonna get wild and stay wild, like two hours from now we’ll be snorting acid off the turkey, so gift exchange before we get distracted?” Steve interrupts after fifteen minutes of non-stop chatter. There’s no way Richie even remembers they went in on gifts together for his friends when he’s busy leg wrestling Eddie in the corner as Bill stammers his way through narrating the action.

Steve approaches Stan first. “I know you’re Jewish but I got you something anyway. It’d be rude if you drove all way out and we didn’t. Richie said you’d like it.”

It’s a tie with a muted bird pattern. Hopefully just the right amount of personality for an accounting intern. Stan, who’d been looking distrusting, smiles when he opens it. “I’m genuinely surprised it’s not a Hawaiian shirt with parrots on it. Good reining it in, Rich.”

Bev gets a gift bag full of Gutermann thread. Bill and Ben both get fancy notebooks, Mike gets the film for his camera that Jonathan helped make sure was correct, and Eddie gets a novel in the genre Richie swears he likes best. Steve feels pretty proud of himself for getting it right so many times in a row, especially when Eddie’s gifts in return are six identical bottles of alcohol clearly bought in the airport shop. It’s not like Steve’s not going to drink it with Richie, it’s just not very personal.

They break into couples again for the board game Ben pulls out. Well, except for Bev and Ben and Bill. It’s a little weird, the three of them being together, Ben transferring his credits to UIC so he could share a bed, but Steve’s never said that out loud. Not about his boyfriend’s best friends. He’s not changing the careful mutism now, no interest in ruining the jolly Christmas mood. They’re wearing Santa hats and drinking eggnog for fucksakes, he’s not questioning shit. There’s an immediate seven way argument for who’s claiming which token, and Steve meets eyes with Trevor over the board as they both chug more of their creamy booze. It’s gonna be a good -if slightly outsider- night, Steve can tell. He’d be happy to have this Christmas Eve a million nights over.


End file.
